1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to the field of personal computers (PCs) and high end work station computers and more specifically to a multiple computer system, wherein a single unitary chassis houses virtually all of the electronics for a plurality of personal computers, the display monitors and keyboards for which can be located at dispersed locations for operation in a teamwork or work group environment with from 2-8 users or in an enterprise wide network environment involving multiple teams or work groups of up to 250 users.
2. Prior Art
The concept of interconnecting a plurality of computers to create one interactive network for small workgroups, is not per se new. By way of example, there are several different ways to connect a group of say up to eight computers to provide a single team/work group environment with different levels of services. From the simple printer switch box to the loosely coupled peer-to-peer (i.e. devices and applications having) Ethernet-connected workstations, various levels of interactive cooperation are currently available, however all suffer from a variety of disadvantages. For example, a printer sharing device is certainly a temporary and wholely inadequate solution because it provides only one of the many functions that a single team/work group requires. Industry trends show that future DOS-based operating systems will have the peer-to-peer connectivity built in. By that time, if a work group wants to take advantage of a full-fledged peer-to-peer function, they will have to set aside those inefficient hardware switch boxes. In the personal computer area, file exchange packages using a parallel port or a serial port for hooking up at least two personal computers, are useful in some cases, but they cannot provide a single team/work group environment with real-time connectivity. In fact, unless the work group has only two personal computers, that solution is not ideal. The prevailing method of using Ethernet or Token-Ring or the like to connect a group of up to eight desktop personal computers is not without disadvantages as well. Even though this solution provides a single team/work group environment with basic peer-to-peer or client/server functions, it also suffers from a number of disadvantages. By way of example, it provides no adequate security measures to guard against intruders who might illegally copy databases or the contents of confidential working files directly from unprotected media storage devices which also raises the possibility of virus contamination. Multiple personal computer systems of the prior art also fail to provide an efficient way for backing up data in a peer-to-peer environment. Furthermore, in order to protect the entry of data, typically each such PC system connected in a multiple user group configuration requires its own uninterruptible power supply (UPS), as well as its own regular power supply in order to operate. In fact, such prior art interconnected work group PC systems are inefficient in general because of redundancies, not only in power supply and UPS, but also in chassis boxes, floppy drives, wiring hubs and the like. In addition, such prior art multiple PC systems suffer from low data transfer rates, as well as the unpleasant requirement for a large and unwieldy chassis at each user's location. Furthermore, there is no easy way for one user to monitor the displays or keyboard operations of any other user from his or her remote location and accordingly such prior art systems are not conducive to a supervised work group environment, such as for use in a classroom context.
The most common way of connecting conventional PCs, that is up to eight PCs, is to use Ethernet, Token-Ring or the like which provides for peer-to-peer connectivity between each system. However, such a loosely coupled Ethernet or Token-Ring based multiple PC system is not usually designed to be team or work group oriented and therefore cannot offer those functions that a team or work group oriented system can.
In an enterprise network environment, PC networking has become more and more important and indispensable. However, while today's PC networking may have provided all the needed functions, it is not well organized nor well structured and because it lacks a well designed network architecture, it can sometimes be ineffective and inefficient. Current centralized file server networks cannot be combined with work group peer-to-peer networks on only one cabling system because one cabling system cannot accommodate all of the activities without sacrificing performance. Therefore, the concept of networking a large number of personal computers using a loosely coupled plurality of existing personal computers, is also a less than satisfactory concept using conventional prior art systems.
Accordingly, there is still an ongoing need for a more efficient team/work group oriented multiple PC system that can for example, accommodate up to eight users within a relatively small area, such as a typical small business office, retail store, restaurant or professional office environment. Furthermore, it would be desirable for such systems to be useable in enterprise-wide networking applications, wherein a plurality of such systems can accommodate as many as 250 users. Utilizing a work group-based subnet instead of a loosely coupled single PC as the basic enterprise-wide network building block, such networks can be well organized and easy to manage when wherein each node can communicate with other nodes at a high transfer rate within the work group and still access the centralized file server to optimize network productivity to the fullest.